Industrializing India: Environmental Impacts

These images are part of a series that were taken between December 2012 and January 2013 in and around the cities of New Delhi, Agra, Tenali, Hyderabad, and Vijaywada

Thanks to Arielle B.  who beat me to the punch with her link on some of the consequences of the exploding growth, her is a link to an article she found through the Associated Press:

Industrialization And India's Brown Air Problem

There are positives but also many associated negatives with the growth that India (and other rapidly industrializing nations) are now dealing with - some of which cites in the industrialized world have had to deal with before or continue to deal with. Perhaps the most easily noticeable is the smog now impacting many cities with the introduction of highways, cars, and increased traffic, unfiltered massive industrial processing, in combination with the continued burning of wood and coal for home heating is contributing massive smog and poor air quality localized around the urban areas, but also is becoming a growing concern throughout the region.

Below see this image taken from the top floor of a highrise looking west across New Delhi at the sunset - due to the still cold winter climate, the warm city air which is smokey, polluted and particulate laden is trapped under the colder air above - what is meteorologically called an inversion - this condition exacerbates the existing pollution condition and serves as a visible illustration of the deteriorating air quality in the city. The most illustrative quality which is not visible in this photograph being that the sun never sets, it merely fades into the smoggy distance*.

*It should be noted that the city of Delhi, Agra, and other large Indian urban areas have in the past few years noted this poor air quality, and are taken steps towards ameliorating the situation, personal transport in and around the historic centers are increasingly using non-petrol based and cleaner fuels. Even larger plans exist to increase public transit systems. The light rail/metro system being built in New Delhi will when complete be the envy of any American counterpart (images and discussion to be posted later). Traffic around the Taj Mahal is now limited solely to electrical, animal and human powered vehicles.

In the next image, a 'clear' winter day in New Delhi - the image of the capital building is obscured by particulate in the air. Imagine standing on the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and only seeing the outlines of the Philadelphia Skyline?

In this final image, Agra long home to the Taj Mahal and also some of the region's heaviest industry, is almost completely obscured by a heavy fog/smog even when viewed from approx. a mile away.

Please post you comments to our main discussion on Industrializing India here

Industrializing India: Rural to Urban in Andrah Pradesh

These images are part of a series that were taken between December 2012 and January 2013 in and around the cities of New Delhi, Agra, Tenali, Hyderabad, and Vijaywada

The delta region near Vijaywada in Andrah Pradesh has historically been adapted with irrigation channels to increase the productivity of the already rich soil that makes this one of India's bread-basket regions (or more accurately rice) additionally reservoirs for water are utilized for fish farming - this image and the one below are very typical for the delta region not just now but for most of regions modern history.

 

A typical rice field in the delta region, a single small shelter resides in the center of the fields, most famers live in small villages, minimizing the space used for living and maximizing the space for farming, plots within the larger field are owned by individual families.

A traditional residence in the area, an increasingly rare sight. In this moderate climate shelter from sun and rain are the only necessities, simple privacy fences are constructed and repaired with palm leaves. Do no be fooled by its simplicity, with a year round growing season these high producing farms are some of the most valuable land in the providence - with land values rivaling that of an American suburb.

Increasingly these farmsteads are being updated, and upgraded with more permanent dwellings build of stone, concrete, tile, and modern materials, these once small villages are aggregating into larger towns. Houses typically house more than one family, with property values so high it is not unusual for multiple tiers of the family to live in one dwelling, or as shown here to have a rooftop apartment available to rent out to other families or workers.

The image at the bottom simply did not exist in this village or other villages a mere five years ago, instead it would have been more common to see a collection of the huts (shown previously) which are now all but gone. Houses are being built financed by family members living elsewhere as increasingly younger generations are moving to the cities and better paying jobs that have come with the continued technology boom that India has fostered - the results of which reach far beyond the cities themselves.


Please post you comments to our main discussion on Industrializing India here

Industrializing India: Old/New Cities

Under this post we will be aggregating links to resources on India's cities and development:

1. Dunes Ruins and cafes in India's sandy Jaisalmer; This article was just published on The Inquirer's online component Philly.com - detailing the qualities of life in the city of Jaisalmer (a world UNESCO site) once powerful trading city on the Silk Road, turned sleepy town during the era of the British India, now undergoing a transformation (for better and possibly for worse) tourist hub.
2. Young Indians Learn to Fight Pollution and Save Lives: from NPR blog Goats and Soda Stories of a Changing World
3. Send in your resources via email and check back.....

Please send in any resources or links to Prof. Hart's email subject link India Resources

Hint: high quality contributions will be counted towards additional class participation!

Industrializing India: Tenali

These images are part of a series that were taken between December 2012 and January 2013 in and around the cities of New Delhi, Agra, Tenali, Hyderabad, and Vijaywada

Tenali, 2013
Click to Enlarge
 This panoramic view shows the developing town of Tenali in Andrah Pradesh a typical demonstration of the increasing build-out of this once small agrarian and trading center town, to the left it is still possible to see some of the more traditional smaller housing and frams, while on the right the new concrete highrises, industrialization and technological improvements are clearly visible - many of these buildings are less than 5 years old, almost all the high rises are less than 10 years old.

On the right, a banana farm (actually several operated by multiple families) Tenali is known for the production of a wide variety of fruit, the image is taken from the large recently constructed highrise (viewed from the plantation and pictured on the right) - while the banana farm is productive and profitable, the need for housing to staff increasing tech and manufacturing industry has many farmers selling their land to developers - and improving their quality of living from manual labor in a modest house to one in a highrise apartment - as demonstrated here side-by-side.


Please post you comments to our main discussion on Industrializing India here

HFC2015: Special Lecture + Forum Industrializing India + The Future City

Special Lecture + Forum on the Industrialization of India, the development of cities beyond the 'first world', and the continual development  of the future of 'The City'

While the economies of the Western world have been thrown into a deep multi-year recession and its aftershocks, the economies of various other countries in and around Asia and Africa have not only continued to grow - but have seen explosive growth. In the course of a young lifetime the Indian economy has transformed not just once but many times.

Through the lens of architecture and urbanity India has always been a rich landscape of design, culture, and building. In contemporary times India and its cities are finding themselves pushing not only beyond the bounds of their historical boundaries but pushing out into new territory - not just for themselves but for ideal of The City itself.

India presents a unique opportunity of analysis wherein it is possible to travel through all the typologies of urbanity and city we have studied thus far this semester - from nomadic, to early agrarian, from the slow growing layered amalgamated city, to the tabula rasa planned city, old fortifications to new cyber-campuses - all often within close proximity of each other. For example, in a two hour drive from the center of old Delhi to its developing suburban outskirts it is possible to start in an electrified medieval urban space, to an early islamic almost renaissance city, through a mughal/baroque city, continuing through a colonial industrial series of urban spaces, through a greened turn of the century new designs of New Delhi, and onwards and outwards through modern industry, service, and technological suburban diaspora of spaces all presented in an ever changing back-to-back-to-back morphing cityscape.

Indian cities are once again poised to leap into the future. In the past five years industry, residential communities, cities, providences and the state government have organized to develop massive infrastructural projects - highways, light rail, subways, grand avenues cutting into and out of city centers, complete overhauls of ports, airports, railways. Skyscrapers are popping up in large and small cities at rates reminiscent of a post-fire Chicago, digital technology campuses are being built that may ultimately dwarf silicon valley -  and all these are being built on the trunk of our increasingly new interconnected internet and technologically driven infrastructures.

In each of our lectures thus far we have explored and episode of the development of the idea and space that is 'The City' each lecture studying a facet in the ongoing narrative of urban development and structure building up slowly layer by layer, informing the concept that we now recognize as urbanity.

We will use India as our jumping off point, to exemplify, and frame our initial discussion, but you are by no means limited to the Subcontinent for analysis - indeed our discussion's purpose is to consider the next possible layer and/or synthesis of these elements into a new fomentation, a next step, a new territory, the future possibility.

Now you are challenged to use what you have learned from our episodes and continuing narrative thus far to analyze, prognosticate, and discuss:

What is the future* of the city?

*A cautionary note: I would challenge you not to postulate the magnificent future of the Star-Wars city of 500 years from now (which is fun but tends towards the utterly fantastical - and there is a time and place for that), rather consider what are the next steps of our urban landscape? What do you think the city will be? How will it change? What will it become? What will it offer? .... in your lifetime.

See the next posting for a photographic collection from a series of images from Prof. Hart taken in 2012 of various urban, suburban, rural and newly urbanizing places and spaces in India

THE FORUM: How it works (A re-briefing)

The Forum for our discussion will be open until 10PM EST next Friday April 24th. extended to April 27th
 Each student is responsible to contribute to and continue the discussion. Unlike the lectures, this means that you must not only submit your own response but read the responses of your classmates and respond to them (with questions, challenges, defense, additional references/resources, or hypothesis). You are encouraged to share your opinion, as long as you can back it with a well reasoned and supported argument.

Each student should plan on commenting at least THREE (3x) times at a minimum during the course of the forum, to keep the discussion moving along.
EMAIL to send in additional LINKS to post on the right side of the screen, or to be updated on this post (see above).